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Here’s some great news from the Obama administration. Times, UK says he’s going after Mugabe.
President Obama wants a fresh approach to toppling Robert Mugabe and is discussing with aides an unprecedented, US-led diplomatic push to get tough new UN sanctions imposed against the Zimbabwe regime, The Times has learned.
During talks Mr Obama has had with his top Africa advisers in recent weeks, the central idea they focused on was taking the issue of Zimbabwe before the UN Security Council, but for the first time to combine such a move with an intense diplomatic effort to persuade Russia and China not to block the initiative. …
George Friedman of Stratfor examines the coming push in Afghanistan.
Washington’s attention is now zeroing in on Afghanistan. There is talk of doubling U.S. forces there, and preparations are being made for another supply line into Afghanistan — this one running through the former Soviet Union — as an alternative or a supplement to the current Pakistani route. To free up more resources for Afghanistan, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq probably will be accelerated. And there is discussion about whether the Karzai government serves the purposes of the war in Afghanistan. In short, U.S. President Barack Obama’s campaign promise to focus on Afghanistan seems to be taking shape.
We have discussed many aspects of the Afghan war in the past; it is now time to focus on the central issue. What are the strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan? What resources will be devoted to this mission? What are the intentions and capabilities of the Taliban and others fighting the United States and its NATO allies? Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? If the United States encounters difficulties in the war against the Taliban, will it still be able to contain not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists? And assuming that U.S. forces are built up in Afghanistan and that the supply problem through Pakistan is solved, are the defeat of Taliban and the disruption of al Qaeda likely? …
David Harsanyi on the stimulus.
Democrats have concocted a surefire political victory. They’ve notified America that the so-called “stimulus” bill might take a long time to work — which is exceptionally handy, considering we always come out of a recession at some point.
The problem is there is no evidence that colossal government spending and expansion will help a nation claw its way out of economic trouble or, more importantly, generate a single job through real economic growth.
So what do you do with an unproven idea? Well, you go big. Make the proposal the most expensive to ever adorn paper — or, more precisely, a trillion scraps of paper. Scare the holy living hell out of detractors with doomsday scenarios worthy of Nostradamus.
And for God’s sake, unite! Those pikers in Congress can do a lot better than $825 billion. Surely there are more states to bribe, more special interests to reward, more unions to pacify?
And Republicans? Just throw in a tax cut. They’re easier than Holly Golightly. …
Contentions post on the stimulus.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel said, and he meant it.
The epic bankruptcies and near-bankruptcies, the credit crunch and dwindling consumer confidence, all compounded by the media’s hysterics have served to make despairing Americans uniquely pliant. Political leaders and financial giants are now rushing to parlay the nation’s panic into the easy passage of a massive government “stimulus” package.
The arguments most often employed in defense of the stimulus bill maintain that now is not the time for idle thinking but for bold action — any action. …
Politico piece argues the case for doing nothing.
Most of Washington has reached quick consensus: Government must do something big to shock the economy, and it should cost between $800 billion and $900 billion.
But dissident economists and investment professionals offer a much different take: Most of Washington is dead wrong.
Instead of fighting over what should go in the economic stimulus bill, pitting infrastructure spending against tax cuts and contractors against contraceptives, they say lawmakers should be fighting against the very idea of any economic stimulus at all. Call them the Do-Nothing Crowd.
“The economy was too big. It was all phantom wealth borrowed from abroad,” says Andrew Schiff, an investment consultant at Euro Pacific Capital and a card-carrying member of the stand-tall-against-the-stimulus lobby. “All this stimulus money is geared toward getting consumers spending and borrowing again. But spending and borrowing were the problem in the first place.”
Washington has a habit of passing legislation in a crisis and suffering from morning-after regrets — the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and last year’s original bank bailout plan come to mind. So we thought it would be wise to air the views of the naysayers toward Washington’s latest consensus approach. …
Thanks to President Obama, Rush Limbaugh gets a WSJ Op-Ed with his stimulus proposal.
… Congress is currently haggling over how to spend $900 billion generated by American taxpayers in the private sector. (It’s important to remember that it’s the people’s money, not Washington’s.) In a Jan. 23 meeting between President Obama and Republican leaders, Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) proposed a moderate tax cut plan. President Obama responded, “I won. I’m going to trump you on that.”
Yes, elections have consequences. But where’s the bipartisanship, Mr. Obama? This does not have to be a divisive issue. My proposal is a genuine compromise.
Fifty-three percent of American voters voted for Barack Obama; 46% voted for John McCain, and 1% voted for wackos. Give that 1% to President Obama. Let’s say the vote was 54% to 46%. As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009: 54% of the $900 billion — $486 billion — will be spent on infrastructure and pork as defined by Mr. Obama and the Democrats; 46% — $414 billion — will be directed toward tax cuts, as determined by me.
Then we compare. We see which stimulus actually works. This is bipartisanship! It would satisfy the American people’s wishes, as polls currently note; and it would also serve as a measurable test as to which approach best stimulates job growth.
I say, cut the U.S. corporate tax rate — at 35%, among the highest of all industrialized nations — in half. Suspend the capital gains tax for a year to incentivize new investment, after which it would be reimposed at 10%. Then get out of the way! Once Wall Street starts ticking up 500 points a day, the rest of the private sector will follow. There’s no reason to tell the American people their future is bleak. There’s no reason, as the administration is doing, to depress their hopes. There’s no reason to insist that recovery can’t happen quickly, because it can. …
Ed Morrissey has kudos for the GOP and Eric Kantor for the House stimulus vote yesterday.
… Politically as well as economically, Republicans made the right choice in refusing to sign onto this stimulus package. In the first place, only 12% of this bill has any actual stimulus value, and it comes too slowly to help. The rest, filled mostly with historical Democratic spending priorities for government like family planning, education spending, and poverty programs, should have been handled through normal appropriations and not emergency economic stimulus spending, which it clearly is not. If this package passes Congress and it works, the Democrats will get all the credit, as Pelosi especially ensured that Republicans couldn’t offer any of their ideas for improvements. If it fails (and it surely will), the blame falls squarely on Obama, Pelosi, and Harry Reid, which is exactly what Obama hoped to avoid — and why the vote was actually more of a defeat than a victory.
So who did win yesterday? John Boehner and Eric Cantor, and I’d argue especially Cantor. He took the first major vote of the Republican wilderness era and managed to score a shutout, despite obvious impulses among some Republicans to appear cooperative with Obama. They never let their discourse get hyperpartisan, and they continued to offer their own alternatives to the plan as well as invite House Democrats to negotiate the terms of the bill to win their support. When that failed, the GOP stripped the Democrats of any bipartisan fig leaves, and managed to take eleven Blue Dog Democrats with them.
Some suggested that the Republicans couldn’t oppose it because they’d already lost their credibility on spending and accountability. That’s rubbish. One doesn’t regain credibility by refusing to take a stand on principle just because of mistakes made three years ago. The way to build credibility on principle is to start acting on it. Let’s hope Senate Republicans figure that out when the bill hits the upper chamber.
Karl Rove writes today on the coming confusion in Obama’s White House. It brings to mind something in Pickings Jan. 4th. “Many of our favorites write on expectations for an Obama administration. Pickerhead has grown very tired of the media’s over use of ‘team of rivals’ suggesting there is some prairie wisdom in Obama’s picks. Seems like we will have chaos instead, since our new president is a rather unformed immature 46 years old. Is there any guiding thought or idea that lies behind his quest, other than narcissism and change?
We are likely to see a president who agrees with the person who last spoke to him. As a consequence Washington’s policies will be guided by those most skilled at leaking. The media will love this as they will be the conduit for all the back-biting.”
January 20th Pickings carried a story from Forbes on the worth of over-promised college degrees. John Stossel takes up the subject today.
A college diploma is supposed to be the ticket to the good life. Colleges and politicians tell students, “Your life will be much better if you go to college. On average during your lifetime you will earn a million dollars more if you get a bachelor’s degree.” Barack Obama, stumping on the campaign trail, said, “We expect all our children not only to graduate high school, but to graduate college.”
Rachele Percel heard the promises. She borrowed big to pay about $24,000 a year to attend Rivier College in New Hampshire. She got a degree in human development. “I was told just to take out the loans and get the degree because when you graduate you’re going to be able to get that good job and pay them off no problem,” she told me.
But for three years she failed to find a decent job. Now she holds a low-level desk job doing work she says she could have done straight out of high school. And she’s still $85,000 in debt. This month she had to move out of her apartment because she couldn’t pay the rent.
The promise about college? “I definitely feel like it was a scam,” says Rachele. Her college wrote us that that many of its graduates have launched successful careers. But Rachele’s problem isn’t uncommon. A recent survey asked thousands of students: Would you go to your college again? About 40 percent said no.
“The bachelor’s degree? It’s America’s most overrated product,” says education consultant and career counselor Dr. Marty Nemko, a JWR columnist. …